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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
8. Creative Strategy:
Planning and Development
Exhibit 8-7 Research helped in the development of the popular “got milk?” campaign
milk?” advertising campaign. Focus groups and survey research studies were conducted
to help understand companion foods that are consumed with milk and how
consumers react to the effect of “milk deprivation,” which is the key idea behind the
humorous ads in the campaign. 26 (Exhibit 8-7)
Inputs to the Creative Process: Verification, Revision
The verification and revision stage of the creative process evaluates ideas generated
during the illumination stage, rejects inappropriate ones, refines and polishes those
that remain, and gives them final expression. Techniques used at this stage include
directed focus groups to evaluate creative concepts, ideas, or themes; message communication
studies; portfolio tests; and evaluation measures such as viewer reaction
profiles.
At this stage of the creative process, members of the target audience may be asked
to evaluate rough creative layouts and to indicate what meaning they get from the ad,
what they think of its execution, or how they react to a slogan or theme. The creative
team can gain insight into how a TV commercial might communicate its message by
having members of the target market evaluate the ad in storyboard form. A storyboard
is a series of drawings used to present the visual plan or layout of a proposed
commercial. It contains a series of sketches of key frames or scenes along with the
copy or audio portion for each scene (Exhibit 8-8).
Testing a commercial in storyboard form can be difficult because storyboards are
too abstract for many consumers to understand. To make the creative layout more realistic
and easier to evaluate, the agency may produce an animatic, a videotape of the
storyboard along with an audio soundtrack. Storyboards and animatics are useful for
research purposes as well as for presenting the creative idea to other agency personnel
or to the client for discussion and approval.
At this stage of the process, the creative team is attempting to find the best creative
approach or execution style before moving ahead with the campaign themes and going
into actual production of the ad. The verification/revision process may include more
formal, extensive pretesting of the ad before a final decision is made. Pretesting and
related procedures are examined in detail in Chapter 19.
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Advertising Campaigns Creative Strategy Development
Most ads are part of a series of messages that
make up an IMC or advertising campaign,
which is a set of interrelated and coordinated marketing communication activities that
center on a single theme or idea that appears in different media across a specified time
period. Determining the unifying theme around which the campaign will be built is a
critical part of the creative process, as it sets the tone for the individual ads and other
forms of marketing communications that will be used. A campaign theme should be a
strong idea, as it is the central message that will be communicated in all the advertising
and other promotional activities.
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Chapter Eight Creative Strategy: Planning and Development